Camper tells of alligator shock

A snake handler holidaying on the NSW far south coast has told of his battle with an alligator found tens of thousands of kilometres away from its natural habitat.

Hans Rusker was opening the gate to the Noonameena campsite at Pambula at around 5pm yesterday when the property's caretaker rushed out to tell him of the bizarre discovery — not realising at the time just how foreign the intruder was.

"I asked him if it might be a goanna but he said 'no, it's a crocodile'," Mr Rusker told ninemsn.

"When we went in there, it was pretty quiet: the caretaker was feeding it pilchards and it seemed pretty relaxed.

"But when we ran out of food, the croc apparently got bored and started walking into the bush."

The men realised they couldn't let the 1.5m-long reptile escape back into the wild, so they grabbed an old volleyball net and tried to trap it in that.

But the alligator broke through that "pretty easily", so they decided there was nothing else they could do but pounce on it, a la Steve Irwin.

"We all dived on it and held it down and I managed to tie up the snout and then we bound its feet," Mr Rusker said.

"Police and national parks arrived about 10 minutes later "¦ it was a very long 10 minutes!"

The reptile was taken into care by WIRES as police investigated where it came from.

It was originally identified as a crocodile but Craig Adam of the Australian Reptile Park confirmed its true identity for Nine News after examining video footage.

This species of alligator is native to North America.

Anyone with information about the owner of the animal is urged to call Merimbula Police on (02) 6495 1366 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.